The Hell of the Ball
by DyslexicDeity
Summary: The Digimon are gone, Henry and Jeri are away, and Yamaki wants Rika and Takato to make an appearance at some government ball. What could possibly go wrong?


**Disclaimer: **Despite asking for "the rights to Digimon" for my tenth birthday, I do not, alas, own Digimon. Maybe one day…

* * *

"No way!"

The words were out of Rika Nonaka's mouth almost as soon as the word 'dance' had finished reverberating throughout the room.

"Look," Mitsuyo Yamaki said, his eyebrows furrowing in a trademark look of frustration, "I know how important you kids are, but it's difficult to convince my bosses that I should allow teenagers to roam free with Digimon at all, never mind relying on you to take care of the city."

"But—"

"And before you say anything, I know how important you are, and that no-one else can do your job, but it's hard to convince anyone that you're mature and responsible enough when you refuse to go to a simple social event because you're afraid of dancing!"

Rika glared at Yamaki and, with a quick glance at her friend Takato Matsuki — who was standing dumbfounded next to her as though his brain was about five minutes behind in the conversation — mustered up as much disgust as she could.

"I just don't see how parading us around like a bunch of stupid dolls is going to change anything!"

Yamaki sighed. His second-in-command, Riley, looked like she couldn't decide between rolling her eyes and stifling a giggle,

"Look: I've tried to protect you from this sort of thing, but the powers-that-be want to meet you because — believe it or not — they don't trust me perhaps as much as they should."

Part of Rika really wanted to make a nasty quip about how _she_ didn't exactly trust him, but she pushed it down: a better idea had appeared.

"Make Takato go then! Leave me out of it!"

"Whaa—?"

Takato's brain had finally caught up.

"They wanted to meet all of you! Henry has only escaped because he's overseas, and Ryo's disappeared, and it took everything I could to keep Jeri out of it."

"What about Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee?"

Yamaki's face twisted into a smile.

"I thought they might not make the, uh, best examples of the mature, responsible image I'm expecting you to project."

Rika looked more than capable of being as immature and irresponsible as necessary to get out of this.

"However," Yamaki continued, "you and Takato are already high-profile enough that I can't, uh, water down your role in the same way. You're both going. _Together_. End of discussion."

"Wait— _together?_", Takato's mouth was hanging open and there was a distinct possibility that his chin would fall off.

"Yes, Takato: as partners."

Takato looked at Rika, who didn't seem quite to be able to look him in the eye.

"You know what?" Rika said, turning around and walking out of the room. "Bye"

⁂

Rika took the long way home, weaving in and out of Shinjuku park, her headphones blocking out the sounds of kids playing. This was all so… stupid: just a few years ago, they'd been like these annoying kids: playing in the park, handing out together, and — sure — saving the world, and no-one had batted an eyelid. Now, though, there seemed to be a veritable army of people busy _implying_ that something had to be going on between Takato and herself. Whether is was Takato's dad stumbling through an anecdote that he thought was "topical," or her mother barely containing her glee whenever Takato knocked on the door, it was as though their being friends suddenly wasn't good enough for anyone.

And, worst of all, Rika hated _herself_ for sometimes wondering what it would be like. She wasn't swooning over him or anything, but when she let her mind wonder about the future, it'd treacherously refuse to imagine one where Takato wasn't, in one way or another, by her side. Ugh: no-one could ever know!

Somehow, her wandering had led her here: to the old shack where Guilmon had lived. Her watch beeped: it was already five o'clock, and her mother was expecting her back from Hypnos at 5:30. She could probably start heading home now and still not be suspiciously early.

Just as she was heading down the steps to escape, she caught a flash of light reflecting off some goggles.

"I thought I might find you here," Takato wheezed though a few deep breaths.

"Well, think again. I'm leaving."

But Rika stopped, and let Takato catch his breath, and before either of them knew it, they were sitting on the steps together.

"I'm just so sick of it. Digimon was supposed to be my escape from all this, and now even Yamaki's butting in and trying to…" Rika paused for a moment: this needed some careful wording. "…force things that don't need forcing."

Takato chewed his lip a bit before answering.

"I dunno. I guess Yamaki is just doing what he has to, but it does seem a bit… _puerile…_ I guess."

Rika scoffed.

"Exactly! He's… ugh… I just can't."

Rika leaned back and looked up at the darkening sky. The first stars were just becoming visible, and a gentle breeze was making the leaves above rustle. She and Takato just sat there—there wasn't really anything left to say.

A little later, Rika herself back upright and turned to look at Takato, an impish sparkle in her eyes.

"Since when did you start using words like 'puerile'?"

"I guess 'childish' didn't seem to fit someone like Yamaki."

"Yeah: it's more suited to Goggleheads like you, isn't it," said Rika, punching him lightly in the arm.

"I—ow! I guess…"

Her face fell for a second. "Don't worry," she said, "your goggleheadedness—"

Rika stopped, not sure how to put this.

"What I mean is," she continued, "when you're tripping over your feet like that, it reminds me that we can be _us_, you know? That we can just be normal people when we want to be, but that we can be Digimon Tamers as well. But when Yamaki's being _puerile_ like this, it's like he's the one choosing when we're Tamers, and when we're kids, and when we're adults. Like, shouldn't that be our choice…"

The sun had completely set now, and Takato could barely see Rika's face in the fading twilight.

"I guess we'll just have to be the _us_ we want to be, then, no matter what kind of Yamaki Yamaki is."

Rika leaned closer to better see Takato, staring at his face for a moment as though she were looking for something.

"You know what, Takato," she said, "I'm not sure that was childish at all—"

She got to her feet, and extended her hand to help Takato up.

"—But it's still pretty Goggleheaded."

Takato grabbed her hand and she pulled him up.

"I guess it's time to go, huh," he said, "Mum's probably worried about me. Or yelling about me."

"I guess so…"

As they walked home their separate ways, Rika quietly pondered that, by whatever Goggleheaded magic Takato had woven, she was feeling a bit better.

⁂

"You're home late, Rika. Come have some dinner, your mum and I are starving!" The smell of potato soup wafted through the door, and as much as Rika kind-of just wanted to lock herself in her room, the sound of her stomach rumbling was more than enough to have her follow her Grandma into the kitchen.

However, no sooner had she entered the kitchen, she knew something was up: her mother ought not have been smiling like that.

"Rika! Are you excited! I've got so many ideas for your dress! We'll have to co-ordinate with Takato of course: get him to wear a matching tie! You'll be so cute together!"

Rika put on her very best death glare.

"I take it Yamaki has been talking to you."

While Rumiko's sensitivity to her daughter's feelings had improved in leaps and bounds over the past few years, they still weren't always perfectly aligned. Rumiko did, however, always try her best.

"Oh dear," she said, "I know that dancing and dresses really aren't your thing, so I told him that you and Takato should go as a couple!"

"And that's supposed to make this_ better_?"

"Oh, honey, I know you probably would've wanted him to ask you himself, but it's been so long and nothing happened, so I asked Yamaki to gave him a little prod."

Sometimes, alas, her best just made the situation worse, for Rika was now boiling over with fury. While Takato almost certainly _would_ wimp out of asking a girl out — which was probably one of the reasons he and Jeri hadn't been pashing for the last four years — even he wouldn't be stupid enough to ask her out dancing: not when she'd made her views on both dancing and being asked out perfectly clear on more than one occasion.

"If you and Yamaki want to play dolls," Rika said, turning around and heading to her room, "you can find some other Miss Pwetty Pants to play with!"

And now she'd done it. It was like she'd been transported back to the time she'd feuded with Renamon after the IceDevimon incident: alone in her room, angry at the world. And worse: she _knew_, deep down, that all this was stupid. They'd go, and mingle with some boring people in suits, and — her stomach rumbled loudly — have a catered meal, and she'd talk to Takato until the evening was over. Not really worth throwing a tantrum over: in fact, anyone sensible would probably read a lot more into the tantrum than into them actually going.

Really, she supposed, she should've just gone with it. But it was kind-of too late now.

I mean, all she'd done was drawn attention to it, and yelled at everyone. And poor Takato: his self-esteem probably didn't need the battering it'd had.

There was a knock on the bedroom door.

"Rika," her grandmother said, her voice in that low, careful tone she'd always used when Rika had been angry, "there's someone here to see you."

For an instant, despite itself, Rika's heart soared: could Takato have come all this way to somehow magically fix this? She jumped up, quickly wiped a few tears of frustration from her eyes, and slid open the doorway.

It was Reilly, the Hypnos technician, standing there with her eyes lowered in some gesture of contrition.

"May I come in?" she asked.

Rika nodded dumbly. Her stomach rumbled loudly again.

"Let me get you two some soup," said Seiko, "and then I'll leave you to it."

"T—Thanks, grandma."

She walked away, and Reilly stepped inside.

"I wanted to, uh, apologise, Rika," she said, "about this whole thing. Yamaki, too, for what it matters."

She stopped and took a breath.

"When I first started at Hypnos, I was terrible at all of these things. The politics, the schmoozing, the paperwork. I was straight out of grad school, and all the theoretical knowledge about network flow control and deep packet analysis couldn't prepare me for all the, well, crap that surrounded it."

Rika wasn't quite sure where this was going, but Reilly had stopped stammering and was now engrossed in her own story.

"Yamaki was the guy who guided me through all that. He'd talk to me about my thesis, and we'd present to the joint committee together. And well, we still both hated the meetings, but they were bearable together."

Reilly looked wistfully off into the distance.

"And then, well, we'd found these strange network packets, that seemed to flow through system nodes like nothing else, and it was so strange. And no-one would listen, especially to a woman like me, and eventually I just started to hate those progress reports so much, that Yamaki had to take over. The suits would listen to him, like they never listened to me, and as much as he still hated those meetings, he was good at them."

Seiko came in with some steaming hot bowls of potato soup, with fresh, crusty bread slathered with butter.

"Bon apétit," she said, closing the door and walking back to Rumiko, who seemed to be on the receiving end of a lecture herself.

Rika and Reilly stopped to eat for a minute, and then Reilly continued her story.

"That's how it was for a while," she said, "I'd investigate these 'wild ones', which eventually turned out to be Digimon, while Yamaki held off the chief cabinets, and argued for budgets, and tried to argue that we'd found something worth spending time on. And we spent so much time working together, knowing we were on the verge of discovering something amazing. It was magical, and we couldn't've done it alone."

She dipped some bread in the soup, and when she spoke again, it was with a shy hesitancy — almost an intimacy — that Rika hadn't expected from her.

"I— I asked Yamaki out, and he was so flustered. It was, uh, actually very cute. We had to keep it a secret, because the intelligence chiefs were already looking for reasons to shut us down, and we couldn't give any appearance of impropriety. In some of the early meetings, some of the more misogynistic men would insinuate that I was a wild woman, leading Yamaki astray with fantasies of viruses that moved by themselves."

Personally, Rika found it very hard to imagine Yamaki being flustered _or_ cute, but maybe — she smiled at the thought — _puerile_ behaviour wasn't totally outside his wheelhouse.

"In any case, the chief cabinet secretary had found out about our investigation into 'wild ones', and made it perfectly clear that we were being funded from the national defence budget, and that we were supposed to be intercepting suspicious emails, not undertaking research that was not directly related to national security. It looked like we were about to be shut down."

Reilly had another spoonful of soup, and took a deep breath.

"And then we found the first bio-emergence. We'd noticed that the wild ones' data flow was geographically linked: network packets would circle through computers in one area, forming a coil that acted like a giant signalling electromagnet. We saw a couple of failed digital fields: a fog that evaporated, leaving a couple of puddles of half-formed proteins. And then, just as the last of the money ran out, we saw a creature — we didn't recognise it as a Digimon at the time, but I think it was a Poromon — escaping the field. And Yamaki knew, then, that he'd found our national security justification: he went straight to the intelligence chiefs, and told them how dangerous these creatures could be."

A part of Rika wanted to be angry at how Yamaki had exploited these Digimon, but it felt hypocritical: after all, _she_ had attacked—_killed_—newly bio-emerged Digimon. She wondered whether Yamaki had the same deep-seated guilt at the bottom of his heart, and felt a sudden burst of empathy towards him.

"Suddenly, we had more funding than we knew what to do with. We were able to hire Tally, and we tracked the wild ones down. But Yamaki became, well, different. I still loved him, but soon he'd worn the face he showed to the committees and the cabinets so much, he began to believe the things he was saying, about the Digimon being dangerous. And, well, then you came along, and you know what happened then."

Rika nodded, enthralled.

"He's sorry, by the way, he's just not good at saying it. We both are. For everything then, and for dragging you and Takato into this ball thing."

Rika didn't really know what to say to that.

"You don't have to go, if you don't want to. But, well, I wish now I had gone to more of these things, rather than leaving Yamaki to go by himself. It'd've been better for both of us. And the food's sometimes good, though not as nice as this soup, I must admit. And that bread is from Takato's bakery, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is," said Rika, who could now identify bread from the Matsuki bakery by just its taste.

"And well," Reilly said, "I sort-of thought that if Yamaki and I made you go to the ball, you'd be able to spend a nice evening together with perfect plausible deniability."

Rika's face flushed at the thought, though she figured she had plausible deniability over whether it was from embarrassment or anger.

Reilly giggled a bit, "that's why Yamaki and I are going."

Their soup was now finished, and Reilly stood up, collecting the bowls.

"Anyway, thanks for listening to my long, boring story. And sorry about the pressure. It's really up to you: we shouldn't have tried to force you."

"You shouldn't have told my mum." Rika grumbled under her breath, but the anger had dissipated. She didn't need to go: this whole thing was over, now, she supposed. And yet somewhere deep down, unacknowledged, there was a twinge of disappointment.

"Thanks for coming round. And thanks for the history of Hypnos: it was interesting, and," Rika suddenly sported a huge, vulpine grin, "I won't hesitate to use it as blackmail material if you try to pull this shit again."

Reilly smiled, "We'll be good, then," and opened the door to leave. Rika followed Reilly out, and sat staring at the crescent moon was reflected in the koi pond. A cool, but gentle breeze flowed through the air, and Rika felt goosebumps rise up on her arms. It had been a thoroughly weird day — an emotional rollercoaster — and she wasn't sure quite how to feel.

She wished, at times like these more than ever, that Renamon were still here; that the Digimon weren't still trapped in the Digital World. Renamon was the only person she really felt comfortable talking to about anything, even _feelings_. But, alone, all she could do was stew in her own thoughts — Reilly's apology should have felt like a victory, but it didn't.

"_I __had__ won __the fight, but it felt like I lost,_"Renamon had told her, in that awkward but wonderful time after defeating Harpymon, "_something was missing. I could load the data of any Digimon I want, but what's the point, when it's all over. What was the point in fighting, if I wasn't fighting _for_ anything?_"

Rika swung her legs back and forth, looking down at her feet.

_If this is a fight,_ wondered Rika,_ what am I trying to win? And what could I lose, by treating this as a fight when it isn't?_

_Is it too late to stop fighting?_

The sound of footsteps shook her from her reverie. Her mother was standing in front of her, holding the phone.

"I think I need to say sorry," she said, "but Takato's on the phone, and I think he should talk to you first. Is that okay?"

Rika's face beamed before she could control it, and she took the phone. Her mother, exercising uncharacteristic restraint, went back inside, rather than eavesdropping.

"Hi Takato."

"Hey, Rika. I—I'm really sorry about all this."

"I think I'm the one that should be sorry: my mum didn't ring you and talk your ear off?"

"N—No…," he said, and even through the phone line, he sounded really nervous, "I rang…"

"Well, uh, thanks," said Rika, pacing around the pond, "I think I was too much of a pain today, so I'm glad I haven't totally scared you off…"

"Not at all. It's been quite a day."

"Yeah, it really has. So, uh," Rika suddenly felt like her stomach was doing backflips; as though she were standing on the edge of an invisible cliff, "what did you want to talk about?"

There was a pause, and for a second Rika wondered if she'd wandered out of range of the cordless phone's base station.

"Well, I know it isn't really your thing, and it's not really my thing, either," Takato said, "but, uh, if you do end up going to this Hypnos ball thing, um, I'd be happy to go with you. I mean, I'd rather us go together, if we go, and I know you don't really want to go, but I needed to ask, just in case, and otherwise we can forget—"

"Yes. I'll go."

The words were out of Rika's mouth without her having made any conscious effort to say them.

"—that this ever happened. I just, like— Wait, what?" Takato's brain finally seemed to have got the message from his ears.

"I'll go with you. To the ball. Whatever: we'll go together and, well, keep each other company."

Rika was blushing so much that she could feel the heat radiating from her cheeks. She still wasn't sure what had made her say that, but, well, _a Tamer never walks away from danger_.

"That's awesome!" Takato said, before catching himself, "Y-Y'know, whatever."

There was a long pause, which embodied a strangely comforting sort of awkwardness.

"I, uh, kind-of have no idea what to do now," admitted Takato.

"Yeah… nor do I," said Rika.

There was another, briefer pause, and suddenly, as though a switch had been flicked, they were both doubled over laughing.

"I think this is exactly what my mother was afraid of," said Takato, who clearly had had a fun evening with his parents, too.

"Yeah, well I think my mum has been waiting for this her whole life. She's going to be so intolerable wanting to organise everything…"

"Maybe we should just let them organise it, then, since that's what they really want. And I guess they know what they're doing."

"And if they organise it," Rika added, "then they can take the blame if it turns out to be a disaster. We won't be responsible for anything."

"Yeah…"

The line went silent again, and Rika shivered as a particularly cold gust of wind blew past.

"So, uh, I guess we'll break the news to the parents and let them take it from there," Rika said.

"Yeah: I kinda don't think mum will believe that you said 'yes'…," There was something strange in Takato's voice that Rika couldn't quite place.

"Well, if it's any consolation, I'm not sure my mum will believe it either. It's going to be awful, though: she'll read so much into it. It's so unlike me, she knows I wouldn't agree to go to this lightly."

"Yikes… I'm sorry. And thank you," Takato said.

"You know what, Takato? You're welcome."

There was another pause. Rika could feel the sweat on the side of her face where the phone handset had been pressed against it.

"Well, I guess I should let you go…," Takato eventually said.

"And I should probably break the news to mum. Get that over with…"

"Well, see you, then…"

"Yeah, see you. By the way, we had some Matsuki bread with dinner, tonight. It was great like always."

Takato laughed. "I'll tell mum and dad, then. Always nice to hear from a happy customer!"

"Uh," Rika racked her brain for something else to say, "it's pretty good bread. I'll have to stop by to get some more."

"Of course. Hey, are you—," Takato suddenly sounded like he was trying to put on an extra-nonchalant voice, but mostly just ended up stammering. "What are you—, I mean, will I see you in the park tomorrow?"

"Yeah, probably. I think I'll want to stay out of mum's way for a bit…"

"Well, uh, I could bring some bread with me. What do you think?"

"Dangerous, Takato… I may not be Guilmon, but I'll still happily steal all of those delicious pastries."

"We'll manage. See you tomorrow, then."

"Goodnight, Takato"

"Nighty-night, Rika"

"Okay, bye."

"Sweet dreams."

"Seriously, Takato? You and your dreams…"

Takato laughed nervously, and said goodbye again. Rika held her thumb over the 'hang up' button for a suspiciously long time before pressing it, and it seemed that Takato was doing the same, as there was a long pause before the dialtone sounded through the speaker.

Rika let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. _Time to face the music,_ she sighed, opening the door where her mother was waiting.

"So what did Takato want to talk about?" Rumiko asked, doing her level best not to smile.

⁂

"…and we can solve these series of simultaneous equations using Gaussian Elimination…"

Rika's eyes refocused, and she could see Mr Yamashita pointing to a grid of numbers on the blackboard. Rika was wondering if Takato's goggleheadedness was rubbing off on her: while she'd never considered herself a perfect student, she had zoned out in every class today. She supposed she should be thankful that at least she wasn't doodling. With an instinctive glance at the clock, she saw that there was only ten minutes left before school let out. And then, well, it'd be time to go to the park, and see Takato, and, well, Rika wasn't sure what'd happen.

Had something changed between them? And, if so, was that… good? Her friendship with Takato was something almost sacrosanct — comfortable, and nice, and not to be messed with — and a cavalcade of terrifying possibilities had stampeded through her head. What if Takato was just being polite, or being bullied by his parents, and really didn't want to waste an evening with her. It seemed horribly plausible — she herself had been more than willing to admit to the same thing —, but while she couldn't quite pinpoint what, she definitely wanted this to mean something more. Or what if Takato _was_ head-over-heels in love with her, and by agreeing to 'go out', she'd unleashed a relationship she wasn't ready for, or didn't understand, and only ended up disappointing him. After all, being in a romantic relationship was never something she had really thought about: if she somehow had stumbled into one, she had no idea what she'd do, or what she'd want out of it.

"Okay folks," Mr Yamashita called out, "that's it for today. Make sure you do the row reduction exercises in Chapter 12, and we'll pick this up tomorrow."

The class erupted in the usual end-of-day noise, as everyone stood up and left to go home. Rika slotted easily in-between the enthusiastic kids who rushed out the door as soon as possible and the sociable kids who stayed behind to gossip after class. Blending into the crowd, Rika picked up her bag and made a beeline to Shinjuku Park.

She arrived at Guilmon's old hut before Takato — her school let out slightly before his — and was quietly thankful that she had a few minutes to rally her thoughts. Wiping her hands (how had they become so sweaty?) on her skirt, she scowled: usually she'd have made a detour home to get changed into something less objectionable than the school uniform, but, between her mother likely waiting at home to pry (she'd had the day off from work), and perhaps the desire not to delay seeing Takato, she'd neglected to do so today.

Leaning back against the concrete structure, she was just losing herself once more in confusing thoughts, when Takato yelled out.

"Hey, Rika!"

"Hey yourself, Gogglehead!"

He clambered up the steps towards her, and then dug around in his schoolbag, from which he pulled some pastries and a loaf of Guilmon Bread.

"I know they're kinda squished, but they should still taste good," he said.

"Mmm… they do still taste good," Rika said through the pastry she was devouring. "You're the best!"

"They say that the best way to a woman's heart is through her stomach."

Rika quirked an eyebrow — it was at once the most and least Takato-y thing to say.

"And I suppose 'they' in this instance is your dad?" she queried, having got used to the Matsuki family dynamic at this point.

"Well, my mum, actually," he said, "apparently it's the only reason she agreed to go out with my dad. And, uh, she sort-of…, well…"

Takato clearly needed a bit of prompting.

"Sort-of what?"

"She, uh," he was visibly sweating now, "kind-of suggested that it'd be a good way to, uh, you—, um— thank you for agreeing to go, uh, with me…"

Rika sighed. "Look, Takato, I don't need to be bribed, you know. I'm—," she took another breath, "I like you quite enough to go, uh, anyway. With you, I mean."

"I— I… Well, I know. I wasn't trying to bribe you. But since she was letting me have the good pastries for free, it seemed worth going along with it."

Rika smiled, "well, thank you for committing baked-goods-fraud on my behalf anyway."

They sat there for a moment, breaking off an ear each of the Guilmon bread and eating it in silence.

A thought occurred to Rika, and she chewed on it for a while before voicing it.

"Is your mum okay with, well, us…? Me…? I mean—," she couldn't quite place what she was thinking, "sometimes it seems like she's, well, keen on us to, um, spend time together. Y'know, bribing me with bread, and the like. But sometimes, I don't know, she seems like she's trying to protect you from me or something."

Rika's face was redder than Guilmon's, and she would've given almost anything to not have said any of that.

"She likes you," Takato said, "I mean, she thought you were 'leading me astray' for a bit after we first met, but she definitely likes you now. She just— I think she thinks that I'm not, well, I dunno, exciting enough for you? That, I guess, you're so well, cool, and like athletic and, um, well everything, that I wouldn't be able to keep up."

They were both blushing now.

"I dunno," Takato added, "maybe you are, like, out-of-my-league or something, but I like spending time with you anyway."

Rika felt herself getting a bit angry at that, which didn't make her face any less red.

"Listen, Takato. You're plenty good enough by my books. If anything, sometimes I think I'm too, uh, that I'm not nice enough for you. But let me assure you — your mum is dead wrong about that."

"I know," Takato said, a small smile on his face, "And my mum might always be worrying about me, but I'm sure it was nothing compared to whatever interrogation you got from yours about this whole thing."

"It actually wasn't as bad as I feared. She contained her excitement unusually well. I think she's lulling me into a false sense of security so that she can surprise me with a four-hour-long discussion of dresses later. She was also talking about colour-matching your tie, so be forewarned."

"Yeah, I've already been threatened with a morning of suit rental fun. My dad had that stammer-y 'my son is growing up' look about him he gets when he's nostalgic for something he was terrible at."

"Well, it seems to have worked out okay for him. And, trust me, suits are _waaay_ less annoying than dresses."

"Yeah, I can't imagine… If only the Digimon were here: we could just bio-merge and go as Gallantmon and Sakuyamon."

Rika burst out laughing, "That'd show 'em. They think we're just kids playing above our station, then two mega-level Digimon show up and annihilate the dance floor." She wiped a tear from her eye. "Gosh, I miss them."

"Me too. Guilmon would be so sad to know he was missing out on this bread."

They both sighed, and sat in silence.

"Is it weird that I feel really lonely? Like, I'm missing Guilmon so much, and no-one seems to understand. They all sort-of treat me as though I've grown out of a childhood toy, instead of having lost a friend."

"Yeah: Renamon, well, she was like my confidante, you know. Like, I can talk to Grandma — and even to mum, most of the time — but, by the end, I could tell Renamon _everything_."

"I'm not," Rika hesitated for a moment, "I'm not exactly the best at, well, talking about my feelings. But with Renamon, well, I could. And, it's like, since they've gone, I've not been able to talk to anyone. And, well, no-one seems to understand that."

"Same here, and I think Henry felt the same way," said Takato, "we, well, talked about it a bit. But now Henry's in America with his dad, seeing some of the Monster Makers, and Jeri moved away, and well, it's not the same talking to Kazu and Kenta, you know: they're not really 'talk about your feelings people'."

Rika nodded. "Well, you can talk to me. I mean, I guess we are talking. To each other, about, you know, feelings."

"I know," said Takato, "and, look, maybe you can talk about your feelings with me. If you want, you know, just until Renamon gets back."

Rika looked up from where she'd been staring at the last of the Guilmon bread crusts, and over at Takato. It was nice, for them to be able to talk like this, and — with a sudden thought — she realised that what she'd said hadn't been quite right: Takato was already another confidant; whenever she'd needed to talk to someone, he was there. Letting her eyes meet his, Rika smiled.

"Thanks, Takato."

"Anytime, Rika."

Suddenly, the shrill buzz of Rika's mobile phone took them by surprise, and they both broke eye contact, blushing again. How long had they been staring at each other? Rika couldn't tell if it was just a few seconds, or if they'd been gawking at each other for hours. Either way, she was in trouble.

She stood up and answered her mobile, and was greeted with the sound of her mother asking where she was.

"Don't worry, I'm on my way back now. See you soon."

Hanging up, she turned back to Takato, who had finished packing up the remains of their high-carb picnic.

"I've gotta go: I think the dresspocalypse with my mother is imminent. But thanks. This… this was nice."

"Good luck. I guess I'll see you on Saturday, if not before. Unless the tie strangles me, I suppose."

"Yeah… I suspect I won't have much spare time before then. Maybe Thursday?"

"I'm working at the bakery Thursday evening, so probably not."

"Darn… Well, see you Saturday, then, in your colour-coordinated tie. And thanks again for the afternoon snack."

"You're welcome. See ya!" Takato said, and Rika turned around to see him waving every few metres, until Guilmon's hut, and Takato with it, had receded from view.

⁂

It would've been hard to imagine a more awkward scene: Rika was standing in a dress the exact same shade of blue as her Digivice, and – having decided that smiling demurely and scowling were equally bad expressions to pull – was pulling a face somewhere in between. Her mother was grinning as though a lot of praying had, despite all expectations, actually worked. Takato's father was standing at the back, looking somewhere between proud and bewildered.

And Takato. Takato was looking around the room, occasionally trying to sneak as subtle a glance at Rika as he could manage, while remaining perfectly silent, as though he knew that no-matter what he said would get him in trouble.

"Well?" asked Rika. She'd intended to sound playfully annoyed, but felt she might have missed the mark slightly and hit 'desperate'.

"Uh," Takato stuttered, "you're very pretty."

Rika's cheeks were beginning to flush, and Takato was certain he'd somehow made her mad again.

"N–Not that you're not always pretty, I mean, it's just that you're normally differently pretty and, uh, sorry."

Rika rolled her eyes and tried not to notice her mother's knowing smile.

As it probably was a human rights violation to let Takato keep blathering, Rika took his arm and tried to steer him out of the room.

"Don't we need to be going?", she asked pointedly.

"We've got plenty of time," said Takato's mother. She had put some significant effort into making sure that Takato was ready on time, and was not going to let it go unnoticed.

"And we can't let you go without taking some photos!" Rumiko was in her element. "My normal photographer Sugoi will be at the ball, but we need some of you here beforehand!"

Rika made an exaggerated sigh, but otherwise didn't kick up much of a fuss. If this whole experience had taught her anything, it's that turning these things into a fight didn't seem to help. And if Takato noticed her flinching every time the flash went off, he didn't say anything, just dutifully rubbed small, soothing circles on the back of her hand, and glanced her way with a small, apologetic smile.

"I think we probably have all the photos we need," Seiko said after a while, feeling that the gratuitous torture of her granddaughter had gone on long enough. A look out the window showed the long shadows and crimson hues of sunset. "It's probably time to go. The limo will be here in a few minutes."

And as if her words were law — and Rika had always suspected that her grandmother's words were — the sound of a vehicle pulling up could be heard.

"Here we go," Mie Matsuki said, and led them out of the house across the courtyard.

Rika and Takato were taking a shortcut across the lawn, when suddenly Rika lurched to the side, and was narrowly caught by Takato.

"Are you okay?" he asked, helping her right herself. When she was upright again, Takato kept a hand under Rika's arm in an attempt to prevent a repeat occurrence.

"These stupid high heels. They just sink through the grass like it's quicksand." She glanced down at where Takato was supporting her arm. Her immediate impulse was to pull away — she didn't need to give the narrative surrounding them any more fire — but instead made eye contact with him, and let the faintest smile she could muster play on her face.

⁂

They made it to the limousine without further incident, and bade their families farewell. Their parents planned to have dinner together in their absence, and not since they'd arranged the surprise reunion back during the battle with the D-Reaper had Rika been so concerned about what might be said behind their backs.

"I'm pretty sure we could've biked there faster than this," Rika said, looking at the red glow of the traffic and brake lights through the tinted windows.

"Guess it's tradition," Takato said, "plus these outfits aren't exactly easy to ride in."

"I guess."

The sound of muffled horns echoed through the limo.

"It's not too late to back out, you know," Takato said, even though it definitely seemed like it was pretty late.

"I'm not backing out, Takato. I'm more than able to tolerate an evening in your company — even if there are photographers, and parents, and high heels."

"Well, I hope it's worth tolerating, then."

"You know what I mean," Rika said, "I just— this isn't my thing, and, well— I hope that it's not as horrible as it sounds. And, well, that you don't find it as horrible as it sounds."

Rika's stomach rumbled loudly.

"Well, at least there'll be food there."

Rika playfully punched him in the arm.

"Shush, you. Guilmon was born from your imagination: you can't complain about the rest of us being hungry."

But there was a gleam in her eye, and they both found themselves giggling for much of the remainder of the trip. By the time the limo pulled up in front of the venue, much to their own surprise, they were both smiling.

The driver pulled the door open, and pointed them to the entrance of the building. Rika and Takato entered side-by-side, and Rika wondered for a brief moment if she was supposed to be clutching his arm or something. Within, a greying older man — apparently the chief cabinet secretary — was greeting people alongside his wife.

"Rika Nonaka and Takato Matsuki," he said, "it's an honour to have you here: we, of course, can't thank you enough for all you've done for the city, the country, and indeed the world."

"Thank you, sir." Takato said, while Rika nodded dumbly.

The chief cabinet secretary's tone shifted somewhat.

"Of course, it's indefensible that such a burden should fall on children such as yourselves. We'll make sure such a thing never happens again — children have no place putting themselves in such danger."

A camera flash blinded them, and Rika bristled with anger: the message was clear — they were more than willing to accept a bit of the good publicity of having the Tamers onside, but an active role in dealing with Digimon: no way. _How dare they_ take Digimon taming and turn it into _modelling_!

She was still fuming when Takato nudged her, and she realised the Chief Cabinet Secretary's wife had been talking to them. A few seconds tuned in, though, revealed nothing but banal platitudes, and a comment on how nice Rika's dress was.

Takato somehow extracted them from the conversation and they climbed some stairs to the ballroom. There was a seating plan pinned up near the entrance, and Rika had only started investigating it when she heard a couple of "Hello"s from behind her — Yamaki and Riley had come over to introduce themselves.

"We're at the same table: number 19," said Reilly, "it's over there in the corner."

Rika's eyes followed where Reilly was pointing, and the full scope of the hall became apparent. A band was playing something which at one point might have been jazz on a stage, and a mercifully small area was cleared away in front of it. A number of tables were covered with ill-fitting tablecloths, and indeed there was a round one in the far corner.

"It's a real pity we couldn't've come bio-merged," Rika said, a strange gleam in her eye.

"Yeah: Guilmon will be so sad to miss out on the food, for one thing."

Rika smiled. "And you could've been the knight of the round table."

Takato seemed totally unsure how to react to this, but Reilly and Yamaki were cracking up in the background.

"Shall we?" Rika asked, taking Takato by the elbow and steering him towards the table.

⁂

"Well, that's just _facinating_, darling. It's hard to believe that the city was saved by a bunch of kids."

The woman from the Department of Finance was more than a little condescending, but Reilly and Yamaki had pulled Rika and Takato aside and made it very clear that she had a lot of control over the Hypnos and Defence budgets, and that impressing her was the best way of keeping the Tamers program running.

"I assure you it's true," said Yamaki, "even before the D-Reaper attack, the Tamers were much more successful at keeping the more minor threats under control: the only reason there weren't reports of Digimon attacks much earlier was that Takato and Rika here were patrolling and tracking down a number of wild Digimon who had emerged into the world."

The Finance woman laughed politely: "that doesn't exactly make Hypnos seem competent, does it? If a bunch of kids were better at your job that you."

"Um, we definitely couldn't've defeated the D-Reaper without Mr. Yamaki and the others," Takato said. "They developed things like the Yoggoth blaster, so it was really a team effort."

"That's why Hypnos plans to work closely with the Tamers like Rika and Takato here," said Reilly, "the firewall is holding for now — but should it fall, our best chance of defending ourselves will be to recall Guilmon, Renamon and the others: fighting alongside the Tamers is the only thing we know for a fact works."

"Fascinating," the woman said, and after prodding her husband who was looking very bored, continued, "Well, I think it's time to get up and dance."

Takato and Rika shot each other a panicked look, but Reilly rescued them: "Yamaki and I will join you then," she said pulling a Yamaki who was trying — not entirely successfully — not to blush.

They were now alone at the table, and Takato let out a sigh he didn't know he'd been holding.

"This is so, well, boring. It's just a dinner with boring people."

"What did you expect, Gogglehead? Pwincess Pretty-Pants' ball with ice sculptures and elegant waltzes, and aristocrats exchanging witty _bon mot_s?"

"Uh…, kinda," Takato admitted, blushing, "I just— I dunno. It seems like everyone made such a big deal out of this, and it's just… not the fairytale thing everyone seems to pretend."

"You're such a dork, you know that, Takato."

"Y—Yeah. But you don't mind, do you?"

"No, I don't," Rika chewed her lip for a bit, avoiding Takato's gaze, "In fact, can you keep a secret?"

"What?"

"I actually quite like it."

Both teens looked down at their plates for what seemed like an hour, not saying a thing.

"So…," Rika asked at last, the first hints of a wicked smile playing on her face, "aren't you going to ask me to dance?"

"I—I can? I thought you didn't want to dance."

"I don't," Rika said, "but I'd—, well, I'd like to be asked."

She mumbed something under her breath which sounded to Takato suspiciously like "I'd like _you_ to ask me."

Takato stood up, clumsily knocking the table and letting Yamaki's (thankfully empty) wine glass tip over.

"May I have the honour of this dance, milady?"

Rika literally snorted with laughter at that — Takato had his arm out and everything.

"No," she said, between giggles, "But we might just waltz over to the desert table and grab those leftover parfaits."

Getting up, she looped her arm through his, and together they made their way across the room.

⁂

The evening was wrapping up now, and Rika had called for a Taxi to take them back.

Saying goodbye to Yamaki and Reilly — and avoiding the Chief Cabinet Secretary, who looked more than a little drunk — Rika and Takato descended the stairs and left the building, standing outside near the entrance.

It had rained at some point while they were at the ball, and the streets now gleamed with streaks of red and yellow reflected light. A frigid gust of wind blew past them, and Rika shivered, her arms prickling with goosebumps.

"It was a bit of a disaster, wasn't it?" asked Takato.

"Well, yes," said Rika, blunt as always, "I think it was always going to be a disaster."

And then, surprising herself as much as Takato, she leaned against him, pulling his arm around her shoulders.

"I think, though," she said, smiling to herself as Takato gently rubbed her arm to keep her warm, "that I'd like to have you around for future disasters, though."

They turned to look at each other, and some sort of understanding passed between them. It didn't matter — what they did, or what people said — any of it. When they were together, like this, it all seemed to melt away: dissolving like so much salt in the sea. Rika shivered, and Takato pulled her closer: how had he not noticed the thin line of blue eyeliner she was wearing?

The klaxon of a taxi horn shattered the moment.

"W—Well. I guess the evening's over, then," Rika stuttered, walking gingerly towards the taxi. "I can't wait to get out of these heels."

"Y—Yeah…," Takato said, opening the car door for Rika, "I can imagine."

"So…," Rika said once Takato was sitting beside her in the taxi, "what are you doing tomorrow?"

"I dunno. I don't have to work in the bakery: I think mum's giving me the day off."

"D—Do you want to see a film? There's this new one out — I'm sure you'll like it: it's got knights and soppy romance and everything."

"Sure!"

The taxi pulled to a stop outside the Nonaka's residence.

"Okay, I'll ring you to sort out the time."

"Sounds good! See you tomorrow, then."

"See ya!"

Rika got out of the taxi, and Takato could see her mother and grandmother standing by the door, waiting to welcome her home.

"Hey Takato," she said, pausing halfway through shutting the door.

"What?"

"Thanks… for tonight!"

She shut the door, and the taxi pulled away. Rika watched as it faded into the darkness before heading inside. Sure, she was definitely going to tell her mother how awful the evening was, but — the thought of Takato, and of seeing him again the next day came unbidden to the front of her mind — maybe despite that, something had changed for the better.

* * *

**A/N:** Well there it goes, my first fanfic, only ~20ish years late! Believe it or not, I was always more of a Jurato kid, but the sheer amount of good Rukato around led me to give this a go, and Rika being her own worst enemy is just such a joy to write. Hopefully it's as much fun to read!


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